Pages

Monday, 19 November 2012

Colonization in Reverse

By de hundred, by de t'ousan
From country and from town,
By de ship-load, by de plane-load
Jamaica is Englan boun.

Dem a pour out of Jamaica,
Everybody future plan
Is fe get a big-time job
An settle in de mother lan.

What a islan! What a people!
Man an woman, old and young,
Jusa pack dem bag an baggage
An tun history upside dung!

Some people don't like travel,
But fe show dem loyalty
Dem all a-open up cheap-fare-
To-Englan agency.

An week by week dem shippin off
Dem countryman like fire,
Fe immigrate an populate
De seat o de Empire." from Colonization in Reverse by Louise Bennett

Louise Simone Bennett-Coverley or Miss Lou, (7 September 1919 – 26 July 2006), was a Jamaican poet, folklorist,
writer, and educator. Writing and performing her poems in what was known
as Jamaican Patois or Creole, she was instrumental in having this "dialect" of the people given literary recognition in its own right ("nation language"), located at the heart of the Jamaican poetic tradition, and influencing many other poets, including Mutabaruka and Linton Kwesi Johnson. (from Wikipedia)

About Me

Hi! My latest book, Storm Warning, is now available from Amazon. I'm also the author of four novels, The Water of Sunlight, Jessamine, Dido's Prize, and Just an Affair, and of the non-fictional, From the Field to the Legislature: A History of Women in the Virgin Islands. A few of my short stories have been published in The Caribbean Writer and other regional publications. Shoot me an email at onealeugenia [at] gmail [dot] com